Sharon Lee - - Prologue

Theo blinked against the words and the desire. What better way to celebrate achieving her jacket than to see Win Ton? Win Ton had known her for a pilot before anyone else, perhaps, if she overlooked Father, who must also have known. Win Ton had recognized many things in her.

Her next breath was deep then, as she let the reader rest on the mattress. She closed her eyes, mentally stepping into a relaxation exercise as she sat with bare toes on an unstill floor, leaving the reader on so that she might look again at the mysteries it proposed.

She stood, eyes closed, the backs of her legs anchoring her to the ship and its minute vibrations while the darkness and the exercise fended off the need for immediate action. Her thoughts swept on despite the relaxation, bouncing between wariness and a growing awareness of her accomplishments.

Her time on Melchiza had first pointed up the necessity that had kept her not quite in tune with her compatriots and age-mates ever since: to be most responsible to the most number of people she had first to accept herself as potent and then to manage and expand that potency.

There'd been no good way to express that to Asu, nor to the team builders with their faith in doing well enough to get by in a group.

She considered Father, with his cars, his flowers, his garden—his work. As calm and reserved as he seemed, there was no sense that his first order of business was to please some ordinary standard. That must have been what brought him to Kamele, who also strove beyond the ordinary, finding time to sing in the choir while managing a child, and her career and an odd-world onagrata .

Dancer , Win Ton named her. Pilot .

She was both of those things. Also, she was Win Ton's friend, though she'd fallen out of the habit of writing to him. Right after she'd been expelled, she'd been too busy. And then—she'd been too busy. She might assume the same of him, who hadn't written again, after the letter bestowing the gift that she still wore 'round her neck.

Did you feel a connection to him? she asked herself, and answered: Yes. Yes, I do.

She opened her eyes.

It is of utmost importance, my favorite dancer, that we meet together . . .

That was true that she didn't know what he wanted from her. It was equally true that she would never know, unless she answered him. If he only wished to return a forgotten hair clip, like a proper onagrata out of a silly girl-book, so be it. If there was something more—there was an urgency, to both the letter, and its delivery. Pinbeams were expensive. Expense, in Theo's mind, suggested trouble.

She would answer him; a friend in trouble had that right. But she would answer him when she was rested, and clear in her mind.

That decided, she sighed, and stood in the darkness. Carefully, she did a small dance before stretching on the bed again, letting the words fade, dancing relaxation in her mind until she slept in truth.

"Rig," she said experimentally. "I—need to—"

He turned away from a screen full of legal-looking language, startled, already moving to balance and center and—

"Theo," he laughed, "what have you done now? I can't believe you could sneak up on me on Primadonna !"

She smiled, realized that she had been moving quietly, not wanting to rouse Mayko if she could help it.

"I'm awake and need to go back to the comm office before shift. But we didn't really settle what shifts we'd run today—"

"By all rights, you ought to be off-shift for a ten-day, I'd say. You haven't had a real break since we started flying together."

She smiled, raising her hands.

"Haven't got that far ahead," she admitted. "I need to go down to the comm office and . . ." She hesitated, and he signed a quick your call, your flight .

"Personal is personal. Get your comm work done, take a walk, and we'll see about shifts after that. Mayko's already out so this shift is mine, and it's about time I run one, huh?" He pointed toward the lock, eloquent hands saying go, go— and, abruptly— wait.

He touched his forehead, the gesture meaning my empty head , or sometimes, I forgot.

"If you need a comm room—let me call ahead to tell them you're coming, tell them to reserve one for you, right? And I'll call you a cart since Mayko's already got ours out on the port somewhere."

Theo nodded. "Thank you, I should have thought . . ."

"No. You've been running first board, so this is my job, right?"

She hand-flashed work work work at him but he was already singing as she moved—and he stopped suddenly, pointing back toward her berth.

"Pilot, your jacket. You earned it. You're on port. Wear it!"

Theo opened her mouth to rebut and found his hands were already replying with:

Order from shift captain!

She mocked a bow then, and went back to get her jacket.

The distance to the comm office was no shorter, but in the way that even minor familiarity with a place will change perception, it felt closer to the Primadonna this time. True, the cart attendant, a young girl who drove a lot like Father, took her directly to the Pilots Guild gate, and this time when Theo entered with card in hand she was waved by as if they all knew who she was.

"Captain Tranza was to make . . ."

The clerk looked up from a desk full of screens.

"Yes, Pilot Waitley. With all the confusion going on I'm afraid there'll be a wait; if you like, you can catch up on the news at the café and we'll send someone, or listen for your call."

There was a lot of activity, and the tiny café was full of screens and talk. There was a flutter of hands and nods when she entered, and quick glances from those hoping to see a familiar face. In fact, Theo did recognize several of the gathered pilots as having been on route or in a bar or on port here at the same time in the last year. If anybody thought her jacket too big, none said, and none challenged her when she grabbed a table with a multiscreen already scrolling streams.

Korval attacks Liad one stream was marked, and another screamed out Scouts Repulse Armed Invasion at Nev'lorn . The large JONBA AGENCY First Class Pilots Wanted NOW Top Money Top Guarantee ad bounced at the top of one screen while from the bottom a pulsing blue announced Mercenaries. We Make Worlds Safe. Join Us. Your Bonus is Waiting.

At the table to her right, a large woman was talking a little too loud, as if her coffee was boosted.

"Tell you true, I have this from clean source. Aelliana Caylon is back. They say she came busting in from Galaxy Nowhere with guns blazing and blew apart battleships with her little courier ship. These are great times we live in, friend, great times!"

One of her table mates was chuckling: "So when do we expect Bopper to show up, or the Second Terran Fleet?"

Theo touched the order board for the morning tea special, and leaned back. She could have read all this on Primadonna if she'd have known the comms were backed up.

"Punch up the register, sandfoot," the woman at the right-side table told her mate. "No? Then I will. I met the Caylon once myself, I did, her and her other. Ride the Luck . She was a pick-up pilot, you know—just like us. Never missed a delivery, too!"

"She's been dead a long time, Casey. No matter how pretty she was, she's dead."

That voice was sad, and Theo glanced over to the table, where the louder woman—in Jump leather—was crowing, and the sad person craning her neck to see—

"Hah! Lookithere. Ride the Luck , Solcintra, Liad, Aelliana Caylon Pilot and Captain, Dock Sixteen-A Binjali Repair, Solcintra. Not Accepting.

"Tell me you see it! Right there in the register. Register don't carry ghosts, Tervot. And just like a Liaden to keep a working ship working, ain't it? Here, let's look for the big one! See it, see it? Dutiful Passage , Solcintra, Liad, Priscilla Mendoza Pilot and Captain, Orbit Seventeen Liad, Not Accepting."